Moro conflict

The Moro conflict (29 March 1969-) was an insurgency in the Mindanao region of the Philippines. The conflict began in 1969 when the under-represented Muslim Moros of Mindanao began an insurgency against the Philippine government with the goal of creating an autonomous region of "Bangsamoro" and gaining greater representation in the government. These pro-autonomy rebels formed the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and these organizations received support from Pakistan, Libya, and Malaysia, fellow Muslim nations. One of the major goals of the rebel groups, specifically the MNLF, was to recreate the Sultanate of Sulu by separating Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan from the Philippines, and the MILF group sought to create an Islamic state within the Philippines. The Philippine dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos used cruelty as a weapon, massacring 68 Moros at Jabidah and brutally suppressing dissent. The United States sent military advisers to assist the military in crushing the rebels, who would become increasingly militant as the years went by. In 1991, the Islamic fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf group began to operate with support from al-Qaeda, and it took Western hostages and forced foreign governments to pay ransom. The Dos Palmas kidnappings of 2001 would lead to Malaysia switching sides from the rebels to the government, and Pakistan withdrew its support in 2002. Abu Sayyaf used terrorist tactics against the government throughout the 2000s, and fighting on Mindanao intensified. The MNLF and MILF came to an agreement with the government that same decade, and the MILF was the last Moro independence army to disarm, doing so in 2014; Bangsamoro was granted autonomy, and the United Bangsamoro Justice Party was established as the MILF political wing. The insurgency by Islamist groups continued, however, and the rise of the Islamic State led to the Islamists to pledge their allegiance to the self-proclaimed caliphate. Terrorism would continue for years, and the conflict would take over 120,000 lives.